Strata – by Robert Beveridge

Twenty years ago men
TNTed this hill
levelled it for highway

but the natives
have found other uses
a hundred feet
of school pride
on the lowest layers
braver and braver lovers
ten, eleven, twelve yards up
a few daredevil Kilroys
even higher.

Beyond, the rock shows through
layers of sediment unworked
by these new sculptors

fossils maybe, ruins
of civilizations or relationships
just inside the rock

and, an unheard-of
seventy-five feet up

a confident white reflection

I WAS HERE


Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Savant-Garde, Other People’s Flowers, and The Indiana Horror Review, among others.

Photographer’s Note: I can see the graffiti this poem refers to. I know it. My photo collage is a different kind of graffiti and ruins.